


Oscillation

by Bool_Ji



Category: Fatal Fury, King of Fighters
Genre: Blond Brother Drama, Gen, recollection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-25
Updated: 2014-05-25
Packaged: 2018-01-26 12:35:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1688564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bool_Ji/pseuds/Bool_Ji
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She knows you need some guy time, and she knows what you’re going to talk about. And she knows she’ll need to find the first aid kit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Oscillation

One day you wake up, look at yourself in the mirror, and decide you’re gonna grow the ponytail again.

That’s all there is to it. There’s no soul-searching or melodrama involved. It’s just you and your reflection, his eyes blue and stunned to pre-coffee alertness by what feels like a really good idea. Those happen, you know. Those notions that just  _click_  in your head. _Resonate_. That’s the word. It’s been a while since you’ve had one of those.

You brush your teeth while Mick Jagger laments  _lord I miss you child_  from the radio in your bedroom.

\- - -

You first cut your hair out of necessity. A ponytail you can sit on when you’ve neglected it long enough attracts a ton of attention. You were sad to see it go, but you knew there was no other choice. Some bad dudes had dropped a building on you, and you were rather mad at them.

Bad things happen to bad dudes when you’re mad.

It’d been a dingy one-star hotel room, a pair of blunt scissors, and your reflection again, except you hadn’t been buzzing with inspiration. You’d felt like you were standing on the edge of a cliff, and that was your safety harness you were snipping away, not golden locks. You told yourself it was stupid to care so much about a whole lotta stuff that seemed to get tangled if you breathed too hard, but you still felt sick seeing the length of said stuff coiled in the sink like a dead snake.

Blue Mary patted your arm, grimaced with sympathy, and cleaned up what was left of your hair. You were going to do some real black ops shit, and you were definitely out in the void.

\- - -

All that happened a long time ago. You’ve moved on since then. Did your business, kicked some ass, emerged into the light as radiant as ever. Amused yourself with magazine columns and Internet sites arguing which over which look  _looked_  better. You grew out your hair a little bit — because  _not_  having it in your face felt off somehow — but that was that. And it felt good, because that was a  _lot_  of grooming you no longer had to deal with.

Until that morning.

Your hair doesn’t grow as fast as it used to. Two feet of hair in two years was an easy feat for an eighteen-year-old with a supercharged heart. Ignoring the scissors in the kitchen drawer and the gossip buzzing on sports networks, it takes you four years this time to own a cascade of sunshine yellow that needs an extra scrunchy to contain.

It makes you think.

\- - -

Believe it or not, the nineties actually happened, but that decade too has moved on. No one makes little red vests anymore. Not for the general public, at least. You have charisma and (more importantly) money, and with the help of a tailor who runs her business out of her Southtown apartment, you get a few custom made. She looks so proud when you model one in the mirror.

You grin from ear-to-ear, feeling like a rising star.

\- - -

Joe laughs and says Halloween isn’t for a few more months.

Richard glances in befuddlement back at the meat locker he came out of, unsure if he walked through time on the way to the bar.

Rock raises an eyebrow before returning to the game on his phone. He thinks he knows why you did what you did. He’s wrong.

\- - -

Andy knows you’re coming even though you don’t tell him. The invitations preceded you by a week. You show up on his doorstep with your white envelope in hand, and he gave you a withering look and said  _no_.  _Not now_. And he let you in and offered you something to drink.

You make it through lunch and a catch-up session with Mai in which they explain the past four uneventful years have been, well, uneventful before you can’t hold it in anymore. You ask Mai to give you a bit of privacy. She’s upset at being blown off, but Andy gently insists, and she relents. She knows you need some guy time, and she knows what you’re going to talk about. And she knows she’ll need to find the first aid kit.

Your bit of privacy is the back porch of the dojo and the courtyard beyond, empty of all but a few birds in the trees. You’ve been there all of ten seconds when Andy sighs and says  _no_.  _I’m done_.

Why?

_I’ve been out of the circuit for a while_.  _Hokutomaru was sick_.

He wasn’t sick for six years straight.

_No, he wasn’t_.

So that’s a really bad excuse. Gotta try harder,  _otouto-san_.

Andy gives you an acidic look. You’re reminded he runs on the same stuff you do, but he doesn’t have his on a leash. He keeps his in a cage.

_Has it ever occurred to you I don’t want my name in lights_?  _That it bothers me when I’m approached to do photoshoots and interviews_?  _That people_ constantly _inquire about Mai and I_?  _It’s a relentless stream of noise and nonsense and I_ hate _it, so I’m done_.

You feel like you’ve made a return trip to that cliff, blade to the harness again. Andy’s not throwing you any ropes. He refuses to meet your eye, staring at pebbles on the ground. There’s a Blues Brothers joke you could make, but it won’t help. Fine. He’s pragmatic. You will be too.

How you doing money-wise?

_We’re getting by_.  _Mai and I have several students apiece who pay for lessons_.  _It isn’t much, but we stay afloat_.

I hear this year’s King Of Fighters is hosted by Rose Bernstein again. Woman like that has gotta have some serious dough behind her. Imagine it, Andy: on the stage with thousands of fans cheering your name, fireworks in the sky, confetti in the air, and a fat paycheck waitin’ for ya. You could take Mai somewhere fancy on vacation! I hear the Caribbean is romantic—

_Terry_.

That’s his shit-just-got-real tone. You wouldn’t be surprised if he’s trained his  _qi_  to work on his voice, turning his speech into just as much of a weapon as his hands. They cut just the same.

_No_.  _I am done_.

You’re in the abyss again. That was the final straw for your safety harness. It feels like you’re falling, and you’re watching the end of an era flash past your eyes in some kind of fatal fury. You’re dizzy with fear of change, of losing your brother.

You have a back-up plan. You get to your feet, settle into your stance, fix him in your gaze and say fight me. You win, I’ll never bother you with this ever again. I got tons of people I could ask to fight beside me, but I wanted to ask you because I

—the word won’t come, but Andy knows what it is.

And since he does, after a moment of hesitation, he stands and moves into position, eyes narrow and cold as ice.

_I hate you sometimes_.

I know.

\- - -

Andy’s an expert at beating your solar plexus like a goddamn drum, but you’re not the Bogard who dropped like a stone after one last punch in the face. That’s gonna be a beauty of a shiner later, a splotch of black and purple not even his own hair can hide. It’s not to say you’re not a patchwork of bruises and bloodstains yourself, saliva dripping over split lips as you pant your breath.

Stars colliding always result in carnage.

Andy hisses with pain as Mai dabs antiseptic on a cut on his cheek. He’ll be fine in a day or two. The courtyard not so much. Looks like a war-zone, furrowed earth and fallen branches in the wake of your fight. You hope one of his students can take care of this in one of those wax-on, wax-off kinda deals, and you start to remark this, and you meet your brother’s eye and words aren’t important anymore.

A notion just  _clicked_  in his head.

The ponytail, the vests, the flight to Japan — it’s all for one simple reason, really. Time. The past falling away, irretrievable. Good, shining memories, ones you want to recreate. A revival founded in glory days. 

Making something beautiful at the bottom of the void, so you won’t be afraid of the fall.

He wants that too.

Despite the beating he just gave you, Andy fakes exasperation as he sighs and says _fine_. He doesn’t want you to think he’s gone soft.  _I’m in_.  _Don’t make me regret this, onii-san_.

You hide how your heart swells in a wolfish grin, and he cracks a small smirk of his own as brothers clasp hands.

You have your differences, and you can’t deny there have been some days when you wonder if you’re really related to this guy, but you resonate so well together. 


End file.
